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North London Raiders A striker Jordan Marks was named MGBSFL footballer of the year at the League’s end of season awards night.

The 22-year-old crowned off a superb season with the accolade and told jewishnews.co.uk: “It’s a perfect end to a really good season, for me personally and all the boys at Raiders. It feels excellent, really good, I’m delighted and over the moon. It’s a huge honour to be voted by the League really.

“It means a lot to me now, though I didn’t really think about it during the season, when it was more about doing well for the team and myself, and just getting the results.”

Having just completed his first full season at the club, he said: “It’s been brilliant, every aspect from pre-season to training every Wednesday, to playing on the Sunday and the nights out we had, it’s a really good group of boys. They encourage everyone on the pitch no matter what.”

While not expecting it, he did concede it wasn’t a total surprise. “I wasn’t expecting it, but a lot of players have been telling me ‘you’re going to win it’ for quite a while now”, he says. “And then Rob [manager] told me to make sure I was here this evening, so I had a little idea – but you don’t know until your name’s called, and it was a huge achievement for me.”

Having helped the Raiders to a league and cup double, he’s hoping to go one better with the side next year. He said: “The goal for next season is to go again and win the treble. We went very close this year and now have a new manager on board, together with a lot of the same players. The group of boys we have are very close, both on and off the pitch, we know what we need to do next year, we know what we did well last year and where we can improve in certain areas. Everyone’s going to enjoy their summer and then go again next year.

And whether he believes they can win the treble, he said: “It’s always possible we came very close this year, fair enough we were a bit lucky in the semi-final of the Peter Morrison, and while on the day we weren’t good enough, but a double-double’s not bad!”

Reflecting back on the season, league chairman David Wolff said: “It’s been a relatively good season. The standard of play is not bad, and I’m happy with season overall.”

And while there are concerns about the future of Jewish football, he said: “I think you may find, though I can’t confirm because it hasn’t been completed yet, but we may in fact have one or two more teams for the start of next season and I don’t think we’ll be going backwards in that respect.

“I’m concerned about the future, but think we may be looking upwards rather than downwards, as far as I’m concerned there’s a positive future ahead, and reasons to be hopeful.”

FULL ROLE CALL:

Premier Division: Winners: North London Raiders A Runners-up: Redbridge A